


Bandages and Bunkers

by hufflepirate



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bears, Blood and Injury, Bunkers, Caretaking, Cuddling & Snuggling, First Aid, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Forehead Kisses, Forehead Touching, Head Injury, Holding Hands, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, M/M, Self-Sacrifice, Stitches, Unconsciousness, Whump, comfort kisses, fluff And whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21714718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: When Barclay is badly injured and trapped in the woods without his bracelet, Joe comes to the rescue. An abandoned survivalist bunker isn't exactly the ideal place to be when everything hurts, including your heart, but it's better than the middle of the forest.
Relationships: Barclay/Agent Stern (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 145





	Bandages and Bunkers

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta jbrame713 for their helpful feedback, and especially for the first aid corrections!

Not many things made Barclay feel small. Not when he was like _this_. Not with teeth and claws and muscles and big feet.

But staring down a polar bear was - different. New. Terrifying.

He felt a prickle in his skin as his fur bristled out, making him look bigger but feel smaller.

"Alright," he said, trying to keep his voice calm, "Alright. We're both just gonna stay calm, here."

Sometimes, that would have worked.

In the face of a polar bear trapped in the heat of a West Virginia summer, it didn't.

At least polar bears were slower than grizzlies.

Barclay dodged out of the way of a powerful swipe from its thick claws.

"Yeah, I know," he said, "You don't belong here."

The bear growled, swiping toward him again.

"Hey, buddy, I get it. They put you in a truck, and it's weird and confusing, and then everything's moving and then there's crunching and noise and you're outside and it's hot. I get it. It's rough."

He dodged another blow but miscalculated and got too close to the bear's body, evading one paw swipe but not the second that almost immediately followed it.

The bear's weight landed hard on his shoulder, collapsing down so heavily he couldn't hold it up.

*****

It was strange being on this side of nervousness around law enforcement, but as Joe made his way through the Monongahela National Forest with a bunch of state troopers, he couldn't help the prickling of nerves along the back of his neck.

He took the lead, ignoring the grumbling and muttering behind him and letting the FBI's reputation for uppitiness take care of the rest. They wouldn't think anything of it. Probably. He _really hoped_ they wouldn't think anything of it.

After all the things that had happened in Kepler two and a half years ago, he'd thought he was ready for _anything._ It turned out, he wasn't. He was _woefully_ unprepared for being in the woods with a bunch of staties when he knew half his friends were out there in their cryptid forms, but there was nothing he could do about that now.

"Hey, FBI?" the friendliest of the state officers called ahead to him, "We been talkin' about it and we think you oughta read the riot act to both them zoos. This bein' 'interstate commerce' and all. You gonna go up to Pennsylvania and yell at 'em in person?"

On a better day, he'd have turned around and turned on the charm and made a joke and maybe made a friend.

Today, Barclay was out here somewhere, and he was going to be damned if he let anything distract him from keeping the troopers from seeing Bigfoot.

He grunted and pushed forward, continuing to hike faster than the troopers wanted to go and leverage his knowledge of the area to make it look like an accident.

"Aww, leave 'im alone, Carl. Asshole."

The 'asshole' part wasn't aimed at Carl. But at least it was quieter than the rest of the sentence, and Joe could pretend he hadn't heard and didn't know it was meant for him.

The sound that split the air suddenly enough to make them all jump sent a dagger of ice shooting through his heart. It was loud and angry and _hurting,_ ringing through the trees, and Joe felt like the inside of his chest was shredding to pieces, the feeling of it almost unbearable until he could make his feet move in the direction of the sound.

" _Damn_ ," a voice said behind him, "I never heard a bear make a sound like _that_. It must'a caught somethin' else."

Joe was running.

"Shit! FBI! Where you goin'?"

Joe was _sprinting_.

"Fuck. FBI! Stop! Slow down!"

His hiking boots weren't made for sprinting.

They still saved him a rolled ankle.

Joseph knew the forest, and he _knew that sound_ , even though he'd never heard it like _that_ before, and if he could _just run fast enough_ , he could lose the staties before they ever got to Barclay, who should _never_ be allowed to howl like that, should never be hurt that badly, who he _had to get to,_ _right now._

His hiking boots would have to do.

He crashed through the trees too loudly to be certain that the crunching of the state troopers behind him was getting farther away, trusting in his own speed to save them both.

His lungs burned, his side ached, his heaving breaths tore painfully through his throat, and he _had to keep running_.

*****

Barclay collapsed to the ground, crushed by a mass of fur and muscle that even he wasn't strong enough to lift.

For a moment, his whole world was a blur of terror and white fur and streaks of his own blood as he tried to dodge its teeth and claws from underneath its heavy grip - right up until it shifted just slightly and his animal brain recognized the scarcest hint of an escape.

He scrambled desperately out from under the bear, taking a heavy scratch down his thigh, and then he was away, still stumbling, terrified, along the ground. He was immediately unstable when he tried to get up on two feet, so he kept his hands down on the ground and ran-stumbled-crawled out of the clearing, hunched over and frightened, just hoping the press of trees would confuse a bear better suited to the wide, unbroken ice.

His heart pounded so hard and fast it almost drove the breath from him and his throat threatened to close up in terror, the air moving through it with a painful wheeze.

He ran as well as he could. Fell. Made it to his feet. Ran again.

Behind him, the bear roared and he heard heavy footfalls, and he was slower than he should be, slow and getting slower and bleeding heavily, but surely, _surely_ he could still outmaneuver the bear. Surely if he played his cards right, he could still get away.

He only hoped he had enough time before he was _too_ slow.

*****

Joe had always had a good ear, but it was still hard to follow the sound once it had stopped.

He kept running anyway, pushing himself hard in as straight a line as he could manage, relying on his history of Bigfoot hunting and his three years of routinely navigating the Monongahela since he got to Kepler. He'd lost the staties, and all that was left was finding Barclay. He could do that. He _had_ to do it.

The bear's roar didn't carry nearly as far as Barclay's howl had, and he had barely started to hear it and adjusted course before there was blood on the ground and he hoped, desperately, that it was the bear's.

Following the trail of blood was easier, but it made his stomach twist nervously in a way that slowed him down, and then once he had slowed, the rest of his body complained loudly at his treatment of it, the stitch in his side worsening and his feet feeling suddenly like they'd been wrapped in concrete. He'd run too far, too fast, and there were times he might have regretted it, but this was not one of them.

He pushed. He pushed. He kept going.

*****

The growling was behind Barclay again. He whined, deep in his throat, an instinctive noise between labored breaths, and didn't look back.

The crunching of the bear's passage through the forest was getting louder. Louder. Louder.

He could hear another set of feet. Smaller. Lighter.

He kept scrambling forward.

There was a shout and the voice was familiar, and his brain couldn't put the pieces together, couldn't put the pieces together, and he kept scrambling.

There were gunshots, ringing through the forest behind him. His heart skipped a beat.

The bear _roared_.

The next shout resolved itself into words. "Barclay, run!"

Run. He could run. He could keep running. Joe had told him to - _Joe!_ A jolt ran through him, like he'd been struck by lightning, and he jerked to a halt.

He turned around to look and the bear was facing away from him, turning toward Joe, who was standing there in his hiking gear and his FBI windbreaker and no kind of body armor, and he should have answered in words, but instead, he found himself howling back at all of it, too desperate to do anything else.

Joe fired his sidearm over the bear's head. There was a powerful-looking rifle strapped to his back, and he was shooting his _sidearm_ , and Barclay couldn't charge properly when he still needed his hands on the ground to steady himself, but he lurched toward the bear anyway.

"Barc, _no_ , I _got this_! Get out of here!"

The noise that tore out of Barclay's throat was more animal than human, and he might have minded, except it meant the bear backed sideways, adjusting its position to see both of them at once, and that was an opening.

He lurched toward the bear and Joe cursed, holstering his handgun and switching to the rifle on his back.

The sound as it fired told him the gun was firing darts, not bullets, but the bear grunted as the darts hit, which was good, because maybe they would slow it down. Maybe they would even slow it down fast enough for him to keep it away from Joe. Maybe they would even give Joe time to escape before Barclay ran out of blood to protect him with.

The bear swiped at Barclay, and he was too slow, keeping out of its grasp, but taking its claws to his ribcage and into his side, feeling more blood flow hot down his skin as it shredded open.

Joe cursed again.

There was a pause, and then a set of louder gunshots rang out and bullets whizzed over his head.

The bear was startled, and he stumbled forward to rake his own claws across it, digging hard into the front of its shoulder and then dodging backward again.

More gunshots whizzed by, still well over his head and just over the bear's.

The bear started backing up.

It didn't like the noise.

It didn't like _him_.

He growled as loudly as he could manage, snarling and spitting and trying his best to look imposing even as his legs shook and blood ran from several places at once.

It probably knew better than to fear something it had already half mangled, but then Joe shot over its head again, and the sound of the shot echoed off every tree and rock around them, and the bear turned tail and ran.

Barclay barked and growled after it, in case it reconsidered, and then it was gone, and he turned toward his boyfriend, and before he could figure out where to even _begin_ to make words happen, he felt his head get light. The world swam in front of his eyes, and all of a sudden he was falling, crumpling to the ground as his legs gave out.

He forced himself to stay conscious, concentrating on his breathing and on keeping his eyes open. He had to stay awake. He had to stay _here_. He couldn't leave Joe alone with a polar bear on the loose.

Joe was kneeling on the ground next to him and he wasn't sure how that had happened so fast. Then Joe pressed both hands to the deepest wound on his chest, where the bear's claws had carved into him most effectively, and he yelped instinctively.

Joe looked scared. His eyes were wide and his face was pale, and he still faked a smile as he said, "It's ok, babe. I'm here. I'm gonna take care of you."

"Get away," he answered, panting, "I can't protect you. It might come back."

Joe's face darkened, his eyebrows pulling together stubbornly. "It can try. I'm not letting it hurt you, and both those zoos can eat my _entire_ ass if I have to shoot that thing to keep you safe."

At another moment, he might have ribbed Joe about insubordination, but as it was, it was all he could do to keep breathing.

Joe shifted his position, continuing to push hard against the wound, and Barclay grunted under his breath. "Hurts."

"I know, but I have to try to stop the bleeding. Can you put pressure on the one on your side? It looks the second worst. I'm - they wanted us packed up for speed, and we were supposed to be able to call backup so I don't have all the supplies I usually would."

Barclay twisted awkwardly, trying to get a good look at the wound in his right side. Turning his neck made him instantly, intensely aware of the deep bite on his opposite shoulder. He yelped again and trailed off into a whimper and felt bad about both, a little bit.

"One hand," he answered, panting with the pain and the exertion of staying awake, "But not both."

"No?" Joe breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, his eyes closed for a moment. " _Shit_."

Barclay chuckled weakly and immediately regretted it.

Joe's eyes snapped open and he pressed down harder on the chest wound. "Don't do that!"

"Don't - make me," Barclay answered, aware even as it came out of his mouth that the retort was neither as quick nor as biting as he'd meant it. It came out slow and tired, and all of a sudden, he was afraid again.

"Ok," Joe said, thinking hard. "Ok. Ok."

He lifted Barclay's hand and pressed it down against the worst part of the side wound. "Put a little pressure on that. As much as you can. And if you can get your other hand to your chest for a minute, I'm gonna try to get some bandages in place."

Barclay obeyed, face twisting in pain as he pressed down, hard, where Joe had placed his hand, and then slid his other hand under Joe's and pressed there, too. Black spots swam in front of his eyes, but he focused on his breathing and the smell of Joe hovering over him, and he stayed conscious until the darkness started backing off again.

Joe leaned down and kissed him on the forehead as he shrugged out of his windbreaker. "These are pretty tough, so hopefully if I can get it ripped up, it'll hold well as an outer bandage." Then he sat back and stripped off his shirt, a plaid flannel one Moira and Danny had gotten him for Christmas last year 'so he'd fit in with Barclay' and his cotton undershirt and started tearing both of them into strips with a little help from his pocket knife.

"Thought you said - you were unprepared," Barclay joked, trying to distract himself from the pain and the nearness of the black spots. His voice was weaker and breathier than it should have been, and it wasn't a very good distraction.

"I am still _me_ ," Joe answered, the corners of his mouth pulling faintly up into a smile even as he concentrated on the work at hand.

"Where's - everybody else?"

"Dunno. Behind me. I lost 'em running through the woods, but that whole thing was _not_ quiet. We have to get you moving. Can you think of a place for us to go?"

Barclay groaned. "Can't," he admitted, "It's all - fuzzy."

"What's fuzzy?"

"Everything." He thought again. "'Cept 'bout - three feet. 'Round you an' me. Our little bubble."

"Are you seriously trying to be romantic right now?"

He hadn't, really, but that didn't mean he couldn't roll with it, if Joe thought he'd sounded that way. "You're my - whole world," he whispered melodramatically, "Light in - m'darkness. Your love - is my life."

That got a _real_ smile out of Joe, and a little snort of a laugh. "Stop it. Somebody's gonna find us any minute."

"I can move."

"We both know you can't, Mr. Three-Foot-Bubble, but that's a problem for once you're bandaged." He gently pried Baclay's hand away from the wound in his chest and redirected it to the bite on his shoulder. Barclay pressed down without being asked, and whimpered again at the pain. The black spots didn't come back quite so strongly, and he decided not to think too hard about that. Best not to question a good thing.

Joe pursed his lips, looking tense. "I know, babe. I'm sorry. But I've got to get you in one piece enough to go. I'll be gentler when we're somewhere safe, I promise. At least we've managed to get some of the bleeding stopped."

"Can't go home," he panted, "Don't have - my bracelet. There's cops near the Lodge."

"Yeah, I figured it was gonna be too hard to keep track of for a bear hunt, but I was _really_ hoping you had it anyway."

"Sorry."

"No apologies."

"Not sorry."

"Good."

Joe's hands weren't gentle, but they _were_ efficient, staunching the bleeding and getting an inner layer of bandages up against the wounds to seal them with as little movement from Barclay as possible.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting up - _really_ sitting up - so that Joe could tie strips of FBI windbreaker around him and his bandages and secure the whole lot of it. Sitting made his head spin, but when he wobbled, Joe cursed and sprang up, leaping nimbly and disorientingly over to his other side and then pulling Barclay's head and shoulders forward to lean against him.

"I've got you," he whispered, "Almost there."

It wasn't true, but it helped a little.

He hung on and gritted his teeth, leaning heavily into Joe as he fought to stay upright. He felt himself tremble with exertion, even with Joe taking half the weight. He whined in the back of his throat and kept breathing and didn't let himself lie back down.

"I'm so sorry, baby," Stern whispered, "Just hang on. Stay with me."

*****

Joe's hands were slick with blood and his heart was racing and pounding and _aching_ so that _surely_ Barclay could feel it where their torsos pressed against each other.

Barclay was heavy as Bigfoot, and even as Joe kept working on the bandages, his mind was running the numbers. There weren't all that many places to hide with everybody out in force like this. They were going to have to take their chances on the nearest one he could think of. He couldn't carry Barclay any farther than that. He wasn't sure he could carry Barclay at _all_ , but he had to, so he would do it anyway. Even if it was beyond him. He would make it happen.

Either he was shaking or Barclay was, and he let himself whisper mindlessly in Barclay's ear, little bits of nothing and all the vague platitudes they usually avoided with each other about things being generally, vaguely, nebulously ok.

He almost jumped out of his skin when Duck Newton's voice sounded just behind his shoulder.

"Aww, hell."

Joe turned around to look, and saw the glowing blue astral form of Duck's he was pretty sure he was never going to fully get used to.

"Took you long enough," he grunted, once he'd adjusted to Duck's presence, "Did I lose the state?"

"Sounds like you lost 'em faster than I did after they met up with us for backup. It's been a hell of a time getting away long enough to project over here. How bad is he?"

"How bad does he look?"

"Fair."

Barclay shifted against his shoulder. "The bear went - that way," he said, waving one hand awkwardly in the direction it had gone and almost falling over, so that Joe had to grab at him to keep him from going down before his bandages were secure.

"Yeah, alright, I'll let Minnie know. She's distractin' the rest of 'em until I can get back."

"I've gotta get Barclay hidden somewhere."

"Bracelet's at home," Barclay chimed in, and Joe forced back the impulse to shush him.

"Oh," Duck said, brows furrowing, "Yeah, that makes sense. Could be a while before we can get it out to you, though. 'Specially now that Joe ran off like that, everybody in charge has been reading us the riot act about the buddy system. 'Course maybe me an' Minnie can get paired off, and then it's easier. We'll see what we can do."

"I'm more worried about what _we_ can do," Joe said, "The nearest place I can think of is that cave over by the river, but it's pretty far. And it's shallow, so I'm not even sure how long it'll really hide us. You have anywhere better?"

Duck chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Hmm. Let's see."

After a moment, he nodded to himself. "Alright. Good news, bad news. The good news is I got somewhere that'll work, the bad news is I don't know the GPS coordinates and it's hard to find anyway, so I'm gonna have to lead you there myself. Hopefully I don't have to cut out too early. We oughta get moving, though."

Joe nodded. "One more bandage. Wish you could help."

"Yeah," Duck answered, "Me too, if I'm bein' honest. But even Minnie couldn't work that one out."

He nodded again, turning his focus back to getting Barclay's last bandages as secure as he could make them. Barclay's breath came in hard, panting bursts against his shoulder, and he tried not to show how scared that made him.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Well," Duck answered, "Can you keep a secret?"

He snorted, too worried about Barclay to really laugh.

*****

The world was swimming. Swaying. Unsteady.

Barclay clung to Joe, his grip on his boyfriend the only thing keeping him on his feet.

Barclay had tried, _genuinely_ tried, to hold himself up, but the farther they went at their slow, painful, stumbling pace, the weaker he felt and the more he found himself leaning into Joe's shoulders.

It was getting hard to tell whether the two of them were shaky because his legs were about to go out or because Joe's were.

"I'm sorry," he panted again, as Joe stumbled slightly and the resulting jostling made him disoriented enough to have to cling tighter.

Joe was winded and quaking and 100% uncompromising. "No - apologies."

"Wish I could - carry you."

Joe's face flicked sideways toward him for just a moment, just long enough for him to register a smile through the swaying of the universe. "Figured I oughta - return the favor."

"Aww fuck," Duck said from ahead of them, "I think I'm slipping. Haven't done this for this long since the Amazon. You remember what I told you to look for?"

Barclay didn't. He'd been so busy trying to sit and breathe and stay conscious that he hadn't been listening, and then he'd been trying to stand, and that had been worse, and now he was walking, if you could call it that, and his whole world had been reduced to putting one foot in front of the other without toppling over like a toddler. But Joe nodded, and they kept moving, and that was enough. Had to be enough.

Barclay kept moving. He kept moving. He _breathed_.

"Goo-" Duck didn't finish the word before he was gone, fading back to his body.

They were alone.

Joe kept them going, and silence stretched between them.

Barclay stayed on his feet, and kept breathing, and moved as much by the feeling of the motion in his body as by sight, with everything trying its best to disorient him.

They kept moving forward.

Forward.

Forward.

"Joe -" he managed.

"Yeah?"

"Love you."

"I know."

"Wanna - kiss you - when we stop."

"What did I say about romance?"

"That 'm good at it."

"You sap."

They kept moving forward.

*****

Finding the trap door into the root cellar of a cabin that didn't exist anymore would have been hard enough without shouldering half of Bigfoot's weight, and Joe was terrified that he'd missed it and damned them both to wandering until they collapsed into a heap, at the mercy of whoever found them.

He didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he literally tripped over the thing he'd been looking for, his foot catching on the slight lip at the edge of the door and putting them both precariously close to toppling forward onto the ground.

Barclay had gotten more unstable with every step since Duck vanished, and this time as he forced himself to stay upright, his claws raked over Joe's shoulder, scrabbling for purchase and, unfortunately, finding it.

Joe grunted against the sudden pain, and Barclay _whined_ in his ear, a high-pitched animal sound that came just faster than, "I'm sorry."

Joe started maneuvering both of them backward, so he could get a better look at the door. "That one's - not your fault, either."

"I hurt you."

He sounded - well, he sounded a lot of things, and all of them made the gnawing feeling in the pit of Joe's stomach worse.

"Come on, baby," he said, the words coming more easily as they stopped and he looked over the door in better detail. "Just gotta get downstairs, and then we can rest."

"Rest," Barclay repeated. It was only a small mercy that he sounded a little less hollow and a little less distraught, this time.

"I can't keep you up and open the door at the same time," Joe said, still looking at the door instead of whatever Barclay's face was doing right now, which was almost certainly worse than he could handle right now.

"Uh-huh." Barclay's weight shifted, and it was all Joe could do to ease him to the ground instead of letting him fall like a sack of potatoes.

Joe pressed a kiss into Barclay's forehead without ever looking into his eyes, and felt a little bad about it. He tried to step away toward the door, but Barclay's hands reached out surprisingly fast and caught him around the waist.

He'd have felt even worse pulling out of the embrace, so he didn't, letting Barclay pull him closer and then wrapping his arms around the least injured parts of Barclay's shoulders as Barclay tucked his face into his stomach.

"Glad you - came for me."

Joe wrapped himself around Barclay for just a moment, keeping an ear out for anyone coming near them, and ran a hand through the fur at the back of his neck.

"I'm just glad you're alive," he whispered back.

"I'd never leave you," Barclay answered, taking a deep breath so he could get it all out at once.

"Baby, you've gotta let go of me so I can get the trap door open."

"Needed to - say it."

A chill ran down Joe's spine.

"Barclay Clarkson, you stop that right now. I'm going to get you downstairs, and I'm going to double check all those bandages, and you're going to be just fine."

"You know that's - a fake last name."

"I'm aware. But you don't have a middle name, either."

"Could - use yours."

"Barclay Henry's not great." He started wiggling out of Barclay's grip, eliciting a grunt of surprise. "I'll be right back," he added, just in case.

As he stepped around to the side of the door that opened, he found a combination lock holding it closed, just like Duck had said. He unlocked it, then crossed his fingers and hoped for a set of stairs as he lifted open the door.

He wasn't sure he'd ever been this disappointed to see a ladder in his _life_.

A string of curses fell out of his mouth. "Ok," he said, not quite managing to keep his voice from sounding defeated. "So there's a ladder, and I don't know how much I'll be able to help you down it. Let me see." He paused for a moment, staring distantly at the ladder. "Alright. Yeah. We'll get you over here, and then we'll work it out. There's gotta be a way."

It was easy to get back to Barclay and hard to get Barclay to the side of the ladder, and with every labored step, Joe was more certain he'd never be able to get Barclay down the ladder in one piece.

"Ok," he said, once he'd helped Barclay ease back onto the ground. "Ok. Duck said this place used to belong to some kind of survivalist sovereign citizen type who set up here 'cause he didn't recognize federal land. There's probably a mattress down there, or some blankets or something. I can put 'em at the bottom in case you fall, and then go down right in front of you to steady you. Maybe see if there's some rope or something. We'll find a way."

"Don't wanna land on you."

"It'll be alright," he answered, carefully not looking at Barclay, his eyes locked on the ladder instead. "Better than you having to try it by yourself."

"No. Can't - hurt you again."

Joe knelt down and reached for Barclay's hand, looking into his face again for the first time. "I already told you, Barc, it's no big deal. It's not your fault."

Barclay's enormous hand closed over his, and for a moment, Barclay just stared at their hands, his eyes looking dazed and almost feverish, wrong enough to set the hair on the back of Joe's neck prickling.

"No," Barclay said again, more confidently than anything since he'd told Joe to run.

Then, faster than he'd thought Barclay could move, faster than Barclay _should_ have been able to move, with his injuries, Barclay dropped his hand, shoved him _just_ hard enough to destabilize him, and _rolled_ over the edge of the trap door, falling faster than Joe could even _try_ to catch him and landing with a sickening thud at the bottom.

There were no sounds after the thud, and Joe found himself on his hands and knees, throwing up in shock, before he could even stumble back over to look down.

*****

Barclay woke up with the taste of blood in his mouth and tensed, resisting the instinctive urge to sit up and see where he was.

He opened his eyes.

"Oh thank God!"

Joe's face swung into view in front of a rough earthen ceiling.

Barclay had just long enough to register that the motion was disorienting before Joe's face was moving again, coming closer, and then Joe was kissing him, and he was kissing back, and it felt good and tasted terrible. He closed his eyes and focused on the first part.

He reached up instinctively with his right hand to cup Joe's face and a wrenching, tearing pain jolted through his shoulder. He cried out, surprised.

Joe pulled away from him, but when Barclay made the effort to keep a hand on his cheek in spite of the pain, the human's hands came up to cup his own, pressing it against his cheek where Barclay had wanted it to begin with.

They fell still. His shoulder hurt less when it wasn't moving, which he decided was a good sign even though he had to almost pant to keep from jostling anything painful. Joe was shirtless, which he was also inclined to think of as a good sign, even if it didn't make any real sense.

"I'm so sorry, Barc," Joe said softly, "I think you dislocated it when you fell."

"I don't remember falling."

"Shit."

"No," he answered, running his thumb over Joe's cheekbone and keeping his breath as steady as he could in spite of the racing of his heartbeat at the thought. "It's alright," he managed, "I remember _you_."

"We have _got_ to talk about the timing of your romantic impulses."

Was trying to be reassuring romantic? Maybe it was.

He tried to sit up, Joe's half-shouted warning considerably too late to stop him. The pain in his other shoulder was of an entirely different sort, but just as intense. He yelped loudly in spite of his best efforts not to worry Joe.

Joe pulled Barclay's hand away from his face, but he kissed the palm before he let go of it, which meant . . . something, probably. Then he got up onto his feet, raising up into a half-crouch, and moved awkwardly around to Barclay's other side, examining his shoulder.

Sometimes, Barclay would have ribbed Joe for the awkward scrambling. Right now, his eyes seemed to be doing something weird and he was just glad that Joe's weird squat kept his face close enough to read.

"Think I hit my head, too."

"Yeah, I expect you did," Joe said gently, not quite touching Barclay's shoulder as he looked at it.

"How'd I fall?"

Joe's mouth straightened into a tense line. "That's not important right now."

He nodded, and immediately regretted it as his head both pounded and spun in a particularly unpleasant and disorienting combination. "Agh." He closed his eyes against the spinning and took stock of the rest of his body.

"Everything hurts," he groaned.

"I know, babe. Do you remember fighting the polar bear?"

Barclay almost laughed. Polar bear? But then he remembered a flash of white fur and sharp teeth and pain in his shoulder and down his side, and his smile faded as the memory almost knocked the breath out of him. "Oh. Yeah, I think so."

Joe nodded, his eyes closed for a moment. "Ok. Ok. That's good. You haven't lost very much time. It's probably just a concussion. That's - I'm - it's probably just a concussion. And it's already dark down here, so that'll be good for your head."

"How long was I out?"

"Just long enough for me to uh - _adjust_ \- to what had happened, and then slide down the ladder like a fireman's pole and check your head and shoulder. I couldn't say in seconds."

Barclay's forehead wrinkled. Joe had a _very_ good sense of time. If he didn't know exactly how long it had been, or if he was _pretending_ he didn't, then things were worse than he'd realized.

Joe cleared his throat, sounding officious in that way he only did when he was also feeling insecure about something. "Alright. Well, in case there's more you don't remember, we're hidden in an old root-cellar-slash-survival-bunker underground, your bracelet's back at the Lodge, and even if we waited for Duck to be able to go get it with all the extra people around looking for the polar bear, you're in no state to be moved any time soon."

Barclay narrowly stopped himself from nodding. "Ok."

"I think I stopped the bleeding up there," Joe continued, gesturing vaguely toward the corner of the ceiling, "But I'm gonna need to redo all the bandages now that we've got more time for me to clean your wounds out and do it right. There's probably a first aid kit in here somewhere, and if all else fails, ripping up a blanket's probably still more sanitary than using stuff I've been sweating on."

Barclay could feel whatever Joe had bandaged him with pressing into his skin, and he could feel pain washing through him, but it seemed to be coming from half his body at once, and he didn't know what was real and what was his brain playing tricks. The stinging across his chest every time he breathed was probably real. It was consistent enough. The pain in his right side and left thigh were more tricky, seeming to fade when the pain in his shoulders or chest spiked and drew his attention, but then to be back again when he could get his mind away from the other wounds. Maybe he was imagining those. He really hoped he was imagining at least _some_ of it.

"Can you help me sit up?" he asked, "I wanna see."

Joe shook his head. "That's not a good idea. You were having trouble with sitting even before the head injury."

He growled under his breath. That didn't seem right. It was just _sitting_.

He braced himself for the pain in his shoulders and tried to sit up anyway, but before he even managed to get halfway, there was a new overwhelming pain in his side, drowning out the pain from his chest and shoulders and sending a rushing noise through his head. That was real, then. Very real. _Too_ real.

His head swam, and everything went black again.

*****

Joe was already reaching for Barclay when his eyes flickered shut and he started falling back down again, and he managed to cushion Barclay's head before it could hit the ground.

Barclay was out cold again, and that wasn't good. He _knew_ it wasn't good, but a weight had still come off of his shoulders purely because Barclay had woken up at all. His feelings threatened to reach up and swamp him, but he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, centering himself.

Then he opened them again, speaking softly to the prone form beside him. "When you wake up, I need to check your eyes. Not that I can do anything about it if something's wrong." Then he got up awkwardly from his crouch and took his first good look around the small cellar.

There was a folding cot set up against one wall, which he wasn't fully convinced would hold Barclay even if he could get him up there. It was probably still better than the floor. The walls were lined with shelves, most holding canned food, hopefully still good, or large bags of rice and dried beans, _probably_ still good. The shelf in the corner held several gallons of distilled water and an old camp stove with extra kerosene. Another set of shelves revealed blankets; cold-weather clothing; waterproof boots and tarping; water purification tablets; a stack of old, mildly-yellowed paperbacks promising pulp action and naked women; and several guns, stored, surprisingly enough, in an actual gun safe, albeit an unlocked one.

First aid supplies were in a large, airtight plastic container, and he almost teared up when he realized how full the bin was.

But he didn't have time for that. He closed the lid again and dragged the box over beside where Barclay was sprawled out under the ladder, carrying a gallon of clean water in the other hand.

"Ok, baby," he said, nearly at a whisper, "Let's see how much of this I can get cleaned up before you wake up again."

With Barclay unable to sit up, unwrapping the old bandages wasn't an option, but his jacket and shirts weren't salvageable anyway, so he cut the makeshift dressings away from Barclay's wounds one at a time and tried not to think too hard about it.

He started with the shallowest of the manageable scratches, hoping to get as much cleaned as he could without waking Barclay back up. Cleaning the wounds, disinfecting them, and bandaging them back up as well as he could drew pained, keening whines from Barclay. They were thin and high-pitched and agonizing to listen to, but Joe kept going.

"I'm sorry, babe," he whispered, as Barclay's eyes half-opened, "I promise I am." Barclay didn't wake up.

When he got to the deepest of the claw marks in Barclay's side, he realized there was no way around it - Barclay needed stitches, and he was going to have to be the one to provide them. He hunted futilely for a razor, coming up only with knives and scissors, and grunted under his breath in displeasure. Trimming the hair around the wounds was better than nothing, but he'd still have to be extra careful.

Sewing Barclay's side up without shaving the hair away first required his utmost concentration as he tried to close the skin without getting any of the short remaining tufts of fur trapped beneath it.

He was completely unprepared for Barclay to come back to consciousness with a ragged screeching howl and lash out at him with his other arm, all instinct and only half-aware of the world around him.

Barclay's claws caught the front of his shoulder and raked down his chest, drawing blood and making Joe gasp. He dropped the needle and jerked backward out of the way, realizing only after he'd grabbed instinctively at the cuts that he shouldn't touch his own wounds until he'd washed the rest of Barclay's blood off his hands.

He grunted. He could patch himself up later. Right now, he had to take care of Barclay. He doubted Barclay's claws were particularly clean after the whole polar bear fight, but he _knew_ the polar bear's teeth and claws weren't.

He gritted his teeth and scooted closer again.

*****

Everything hurt and his eyes were swimming with both dizziness and tears, but Barclay forced them to focus as soon as he had something concrete to look toward, a grunt from beside him that gave him a more specific location than the pain tearing up his side and across his chest.

Joe was kneeling on the floor, just out of arm's reach. He was shirtless and had claw marks down the front of his chest, blood welling up along them but not quite dripping yet.

The wounds were fresh, and Barclay growled and looked around for whoever had done it, readying himself for a fight that he quickly realized wasn't coming. They were alone.

Joe got closer to him, scooting forward on his knees. "It's alright," he said, his face a little pale and decidedly pained. "It's alright, baby. You're safe. We got to safety."

Safety. Safety. Things started to slot into place despite the pounding ache throbbing up from the back of his head, and Barclay's eyes widened, his breath coming shorter as he realized what must have happened.

Joe moved fast, his hand reaching down to turn Barclay's face toward him, holding Barclay's cheek and chin gently. "Whoa, hey, no, Barc, it's ok. I'm ok."

Barclay reached for Joe's arm, but the moment he moved the arm on his bad side, another ripple of pain tore through him from both shoulder and ribcage and he whimpered in the back of his throat before he could stop it, his vision swimming again and settling only after he let his arm fall to the ground and held very still.

Joe's face still looked tense, and the scratches on his chest were starting to drip now, not flowing heavily but still damning Barclay as the droplets ran down the skin of Joe's stomach, toward the waistband of his jeans.

"It's not," Barclay gasped, "It's not ok."

"It _is_ ," Joe answered, jaw set, stubborn, and the wave of love that flooded over Barclay just made everything more confusing. "Now look over here for me, babe. Just follow my finger. Good."

Barclay's eyes followed, but his mind was stuck in the argument, stuck on how very, very _not_ ok it was to know blood was dripping down Joe's body and it was his fault, and how very, _very_ much he wanted to hold on to the ridiculous, stubborn, preposterous man kneeling over him.

"You should - get away from me," he said, tearing up a little for too many reasons at once for him to parse.

His voice came out ragged and breathless, weaker than he'd meant it to be. It was hard to breathe right, hard to make the words sound the way he meant them. His throat was thick, trying to close up at the sight of what he'd done, and the breaths that made it through expanded his chest enough to draw bright, stinging pain across his chest in lines he couldn't help thinking were similar to the ones bleeding in front of his eyes.

Maybe it was fate. Karma. A punishment for something he couldn't bear to have done. _Feeling_ the sting of it, the same lines carved into his own chest to throb with Joe's. His heart ached, mind scrambling for anything, _anything_ that meant he wasn't a monster. His tears came faster, heavier, real tears now, and he didn't try to stop them, letting his vision of Joe blur and quiver.

Joe stopped checking his eyes and laid a hand on either side of Barclay's head.

"Never," he said, pressing a kiss to his forehead and then leaning his own forehead against the spot he'd kissed. "Never, babe." Joe's eyes were close and warm and familiar and _telling the truth_ , and Barclay had to close his own against them, pushing more warm, wet tears into the fur around them.

"I'm gonna get you patched up the rest of the way," Joe continued, his breath warm on Barclay's face, "And then I'm gonna get my shoulder taken care of, and we're gonna wait this out. We're gonna be ok."

Wait out - wait out - he started to remember more of the pieces, to put them back together. He'd fought a polar bear. He'd gotten down here, wherever down here was. He'd fallen and hit his head. He'd fought a _polar bear_. They didn't have his bracelet, and they weren't sure they could get it. They were trapped. There was nothing to be done.

He tried to relax his muscles in the hope that it would ease some of the pain from some of the places he'd been torn open and make it easier to think. The ground was cool and hard beneath him, and he breathed deeper, cataloguing all the parts of his body that rested against it. Both his shoulders hurt, but the rest of his back, all the way down his spine, felt ok, and the backs of his legs were fine. It was just his chest and side and thigh that hurt.

That was good. Better. Clear.

He breathed again, trying to think of a way to break through that resolute Joseph Stern stubbornness and truth, even with only half the facts sticking usefully in his mind.

Joe kissed his forehead again, lingering for a moment before he pulled away and Barclay heard him moving, rooting through something. "I've gotta sew you up, now. Just your side and the worst of the ones on your chest. I'm gonna need you to be still."

Barclay breathed deeply, trying to stay calm as he opened his eyes again and looked at Joe again. "Just leave me," he said, his voice as steady and easy as he could make it. "Get help for yourself. I'll - I'll be alright."

"You won't," Joe answered quietly, not meeting Barclay's eyes for once. His hands stilled in the plastic tub full of whatever he'd been working with, and his voice sounded like it was being forced through the same tight lump Barclay could feel in his own throat, "Not on your own."

Joe's eyes were closed, and if the honesty in them had been unbearable before, it was nothing compared to looking at him now, his eyes shut so tight they almost looked painful. He swallowed hard and Barclay's throat thobbed sympathetically. "But I'm _here_ ," Joe added, "And I'm _staying_ here."

"I love you," Barclay answered, the only words he could find.

"I love you, too."

" _Joe_ -" Barclay was breathless and aching and couldn't keep the words flowing fast enough to stop Joe from interrupting him. Joe cleared his throat in that familiar, businesslike way he more often used with other people, his eyes opening as he raised his chin and flared his nostrils in a show of the beautiful, unchanging stubbornness Barclay had only learned to love once everything was out in the open between them.

"I'll have to re-sterilize the needle and get some new thread," he said, his voice tense and sharp and distant and still achingly familiar. "I dropped it. Just sit tight and try not to move too much, and I'll start some water boiling. I think I'd better keep cleaning your other wounds before we try sewing you up again. I don't want to leave dirt and things in there too long."

Joe turned his back, and Barclay knew it was to end the argument. For a moment, he could feel a protest building on his tongue, just in principle, but his throbbing head couldn't think quickly enough, and it died before his mouth could speak it.

He took a few more ragged breaths before he could manage, "How - how bad is it?"

"What do you feel right now?" Joe's voice was tight, and he was still not looking at Barclay, focused intently on the camp stove he was setting up.

"Everything. Nothing. Disoriented. I'm - I can tell I'm injured, but it's like - I keep feeling things one at a time. And then they rotate around. Everything hurts. And I'm dizzy."

"Yeah," Joe answered, his voice softening a little, "That's how bad it is."

Barclay grunted. "But how bad _is_ it? I'm trying not to move."

Joe sighed. "Bad, babe. If I could, I'd have gotten you to the Lodge instead of here. If I could, I'd have taken you to a _hospital_ instead of there."

That was not good news, but it made sense, given the kaleidoscope of pain that spun around him every time he breathed. "Then - fix yours first," he said, trying to sound strong and mostly failing, "There will be time for me. But it'll - _God_ , Joe, everything hurts, and I just - fix yours first. Don't wait on me."

Joe finally turned to look at him, his face a tangle of unreadable emotion. "Well, there's a turnaround. Usually you're the one saying you're waiting on _me_."

" _Please_."

Joe looked away again, ducking his head down. "Ok. But not until I've gotten this needle into a pot of boiling water."

Barclay smiled, closing his eyes as he sighed in relief. None of this was good, and none of this was right, and none of this was ok, but Joe wasn't dying, and he wasn't putting himself last again, and that was something. That _had_ to count for something. "Ok," he answered.

Everything hurt, but enough of his back was unharmed that he could focus on the floor again, focus on the coolness radiating up from the hard-packed and well-scraped dirt, on the solid press of it against his back, on the sounds of Joe setting up the stove and a pot and pouring water and moving around, on all the parts at the edges of the pain where he felt alright.

He couldn't meditate his way out of hurting, but he could slow his heart rate, and he could relax his muscles enough to stop making it all worse, and he could wait, and that was enough, for the moment.

He heard Joe coming back before his boyfriend's soft touch to the uninjured span of his upper arm drew his attention back out of the meditation.

He opened his eyes to find Joe squatting awkwardly over him, blushing slightly, with his chest and the opposite shoulder bandaged, the one on his chest taped more neatly than his shoulder. "I'm uh - there's winter clothes in here, but I'm gonna wait on that until you're all patched up. I - we'll get all set up and settled in once I know you're not already getting an infection. And once I don't have to keep checking the stove."

"Ok."

"It still needs to boil for a bit, so I'm gonna start cleaning the cuts on your chest. The uh - that deepest one's gonna hurt."

Barclay closed his eyes."Yeah. Yeah, alright."

Joe knelt down next to him and peeled away the outside layers of the bandage, then picked up a tin cup full of mostly warm water and poured it gently over the layer he'd bled on, making it feel wet and strange and clingy. His movements were careful and delicate as he separated bandage from skin, revealing claw marks that were even worse than Barclay had realized and brought the whole thing into a little better perspective for him.

"Oh," he breathed, "That's bad."

"Yeah," Joe answered, just as softly, "It is. I'm sorry, Barc."

Actually having his wounds cleaned was much worse. Joe's fingers probing the torn flesh felt like he was being carved into all over again, and Joe's assertions that they just had to be _sure_ any dirt had been flushed out didn't do much to help. The rough surface of the gauze scraping against the open inside of his wounds pulled a keening noise he'd never heard before out of his throat.

He squeezed his eyes shut, tight. It did nothing, and every instinctive move his body made to get away from the ripping, tearing, _howling_ pain under Joe's fingers just sent harsh stabbing spikes through his shoulders or wrenching agony through his side. He whimpered and whined and keened and couldn't stop himself, couldn't do a single goddamned thing about it, but he didn't let himself sob, and at least that was something.

When Joe finally stopped, when one hand came to rest above the cuts and the other cupped Barclay's cheek again, he opened his eyes, looked up at Joe and let himself come back to the world a little more.

Joe's eyes were red and puffy and shining, but he wasn't crying, and Barclay recognized the stubbornness of that, of the particular not-crying crinkle to his nose, and warmth filled his chest again.

He reached up with the hand on his good side, ignoring the twinge the motion provoked in his shoulder, and put his hand over Joe's, pressing it more firmly against his own cheek. "I'm ok," he said softly, his voice coming out weaker and croakier than before.

Joe leaned down and kissed him gently on the lips. "You're not." He rested his forehead against Barclay's. "But you're almost done. Just one more bad part, and then everything else will be easier than this. I promise."

Joe's eyes were locked into his, without a hint of the avoidance that had come and gone before. His gaze was rock solid, piercing, dependable. Another wave of feeling washed over Barclay. "Kiss me again," he whispered.

He did, pressing their lips together for a little bit longer this time, long enough for Barclay to kiss him back and hope that _something_ had made itself clear between them.

"Do what you have to do," he added, so softly it was almost a whisper, "I can take it."

Joe nodded and slipped his hand away from Barclay's cheek. "I think it's just the two that need stitches. I'll make it as quick as I can. I promise."

Barclay made the mistake of watching Joe this time, his eyes following him as he went back over to his supplies, checked things, arranged them, picked up the needle, and threaded it. By the time he squeezed his eyes shut, he was trembling, as much from anticipation as fear.

Joe wasn't. His hands were perfectly steady as they pushed the needle through his already throbbing flesh and dragged the thread through it, and in the moments before Barclay passed out again, his head swimming as heart raced too fast for his brain to handle, he was grateful for that steadiness.

He was dragged back to the surface by a new kind of pain, a burning in his side that felt like it was going to melt through him and drip onto the floor, and he screamed before he could make any sense of it, his back arching until his shoulders screamed pain right back at him.

"Barclay!" Joe's voice was loud, and his hands were strong, pushing down on the biggest uninjured patches of his torso. "Barclay, hold still, it's almost over, I promise!"

He caught his breath and grunted, his jaw clenched too tightly against the burning and the throb in his shoulders to let out another scream.

"It's an antiseptic. It's just an antiseptic. Don't tear your stitches, babe, it's just antiseptic, and I had to. It's the very last thing, I promise. Then we'll get you bandaged up and I don't have to touch any of your wounds anymore. I promise I don't."

He whined in the back of his throat, still more pathetic than he'd meant to be, but at least it was better than a scream. At least it wasn't the worst noise he'd made today, writhing pathetically under his boyfriend's hands.

"I'm gonna be quick, and then it's gonna be over."

Joe spread the antiseptic over his chest wound, but Barclay was determined not to scream this time, holding it back to a single, muffled shout. The burning in his side had eased to a harsh sting, and was probably going to fade into all the other pain soon enough, but he still found himself grunting against the pain of the ointment burning across his chest as he continued to breathe shallowly and a little too fast.

Joe had put down everything he was holding to take Barclay's hand, and he squeezed into Joe's grip and kept breathing, and then the burning on his chest, too, was fading into a dull, radiating sting, and he could breathe again.

Once his breathing had eased, Joe lifted his hand up high enough to lean forward and press his forehead to the back of Barclay's knuckles, moving slowly enough that the motion barely jostled his shoulder at all. "Ok," he said, sounding out of breath himself, as he hunched over the back of Barclay's hand. "Ok. You're alright."

Joe took another heavy breath and then pulled away again, nodding. "Alright. All that's left is getting you bandaged up tightly enough that nothing will move. If I could use the tape, you could stay lying down, but with the fur, we'll have to bind it around you, so I'm going to need you to sit up. And then we'll get you to the cot, if we can, and you can sleep all you want."

Before Barclay could agree or disagree, Joe was moving again, gently setting his hand down and then coaxing him up to a sitting position that immediately made his head spin and his side take sharp, stabbing precedence over all his other wounds.

He stayed upright through sheer force of will, shaking with effort, dizzy and desperate and trying to keep breathing because anything else, even tracking how far Joe had gotten with the bandaging, was completely, totally, and indisputably beyond him.

He only laid back down when Joe started pushing gently against him, easing him back to the ground firmly enough that it was easier to go than to think about it.

"Are you ok?" Joe asked, sounding scared and nervous, both completely himself and not himself at all.

"I love you," Barclay panted, "I love you."

He wasn't sure it was the right answer. But he wasn't sure it was the wrong one. His eyes slid shut, and Joe's hands slowly, reluctantly left him.

"I'll be right back."

He was almost asleep in spite of everything when Joe came back, only a few heartbeats later, and laid down beside him on his good side, huddling close at a weird angle as he avoided Barclay's shoulder wounds.

Barclay didn't try to sit up or twist to see him, just moved his arm as slowly as he could to wrap around Joe's side. His palms found warm, scratchy wool, apparently the winter clothes he vaguely recalled Joe mentioning.

Joe moved beneath his hand, pulling himself up until his face was where Barclay could see it. "I thought you were asleep. Do you want to move to the cot?"

"Don't think I can move," he answered tightly.

"That's ok, baby. That's just fine. I'm gonna stay right here. I'm right here."

"I know."

Joe kissed him, and he let him, kissing back in spite of the exhaustion that seemed to follow in dark waves behind every throb of pain. Joe pulled away and settled back down to cuddle against his side, not quite in his usual place, but close enough for Barclay to feel his presence. Relief joined the exhaustion until Barclay couldn't fight it anymore and sank into the darkness.

*****

It was hours before Duck Newton's astral form appeared beside them again, hours of worrying and keeping his body pressed against Barclay's to feel him breathe and trying to take comfort in the contact, and then it was only bad news and finally being forced to accept that they were stuck here on their own until Barclay was healthy enough to be moved.

Then it was night. Morning. Night again. Barclay slept hard, apparently mending but barely able to stay awake long enough to eat, when he woke up at all. He looked at Joe with soft, desperate confusion and followed directions and fell back asleep with only what Joe could force into him fueling the healing.

In the absence of a bedpan, Joe did the best he could with trays and buckets from the shelves as Barclay looked at him, dazed and nearly unseeing. His pupils were the same size every time Joe checked, and it was the only good thing about that half-blind gaze.

Every twelve hours, he changed the dressings on Barclay's wounds. Barclay whimpered under his touch, even when he was the gentlest he could be. He sat up when ordered to, leaning heavily into his shoulder until Joe almost toppled over and only his fear kept them both upright.

Joe slept on the hard floor, curled up into as much of Barclay's side as he could responsibly touch, and prayed to everyone he could think of, more fervently than he ever had in his life.

*****

Barclay's mouth was dry again. It always seemed dry.

There was something warm and heavy pressed up against his ribs on one side.

He tried to prop himself up to look and see what it was, but both his shoulders immediately hurt badly enough to drive tears into his eyes. When he yelped, the something moved.

It was Joe. He was unshaven and looked a little grey, and he was _Joe_. The movement sped up and then Joe was close, too close, right in his face, peering into his eyes, pressing gentle fingers into the skin and fur around them. "Ok, baby, keep your eyes on me. Look right here for me. Come on, baby, just keep them open for a second, ok?"

Barclay's brow furrowed. "Why?" he croaked, "Are you ok?"

Joe looked surprised. "Barclay?" his voice was soft and reverent, and hit Barclay's heart at a weird angle.

He licked his lips and fought through the cotton-stuffed feeling in his mouth. "What's wrong? Something's wrong."

" _You_ , Barc. It's you. Don't - don't move too much. You're really hurt."

"Ah. Yup. Yeah. That tracks."

His mind felt clear, but he suspected that hadn't always been the case. The last - how long had they been here? Where were they? They were underground. They were hiding.

He moved his hand as slowly as he could until he found Joe's. They interlaced their fingers immediately, as if it were any other day, any other moment. "I think I feel a little better," he said. It was true only in the sense that he had a distant memory of not being able to stand the pain that was now a steady but manageable throb covering a decent chunk of his body.

"I'm just glad you're back with me." Joe sounded genuinely relieved.

"How long was I - gone?"

"This is our third day down here. It's been something like 56 hours. You - you were alive. But it was like I couldn't reach you. Like you were in a daze."

"Defense mechanism?"

"Maybe. Maybe. But you're still here." Joe rearranged slightly, brushing his free hand over Barclay's forehead to smooth his fur away from his eyes. "Tell me you're still here."

Barclay smiled, drawing their linked hands very slowly up to his mouth to kiss the back of Joe's hand. "As if I'd let you have credit for killing Bigfoot."

Joe pinched the side of his temple, maybe just because it wasn't injured. "Don't even joke about that."

Compared to the rest of his body, the pinch felt like nothing, but he yelped melodramatically anyway.

"You're terrible." Joe didn't even bother to make it a genuine lie, his voice sounding as warm and fond as ever.

Barclay kissed the back of his hand again. "I know."

"I love you."

"I know that, too."

"56 hours ago, you were being _very_ sappy."

"Guess it's your turn, now."

Joe laughed, a sound Barclay had once made Mama choke on her coffee by describing as musical when it was _apparently_ far from it.

"Unfortunately not," he answered. "How far do you think you can sit up to pee?"

Depending on Joe to help him relieve himself was humiliating, and leaning so hard on him that he almost knocked him over on the way to the old cot in the corner was little better.

Joe showed none of it, holding strong even when his legs quivered slightly and looking at him like he loved him even as Barclay stood feeble and useless beside him.

Barclay's whole body ached to lie down, throbbing and pounding and exhausted, but he was stubborn and he was himself, and he sat up instead, setting his chin before Joe could even suggest that he do otherwise.

Joe squatted beside the camp stove, heating up soup and updating him on - something. Some message from Duck. Barclay's head hurt as badly as the rest of him, and he couldn't make sense of it while he was also trying to soak in the intricacies of Joe's face moving and the sound of his voice.

Joe watched him eat as intensely as if Barclay was one of his investigations again. "What?" Barclay asked, "Do I have something on my face?"

Joe avoided his eyes, glancing off to the side. "You're just doing a lot better than the last time you woke up. And the time before. It's - good to see."

Barclay reached out and took Joe's hand, squeezing it gently. "Yeah, well, this is a little bit of a strain on my shoulders. I'm not surprised I might have needed help before."

"Barc, you -" Joe shook his head, his nose wrinkling. "Never mind. Do you want help now? I can - I mean, I'm pretty sure you've spoon-fed half the Lodge before, when that flu went around."

"Are you trying to save my pride?"

"Might be."

"You just helped me _piss_."

"Yeah, that's why I thought you needed it." Joe couldn't quite hold back a smile, and Barclay found himself growling fondly in reply.

If his shoulder hurt less, he'd swipe playfully in Joe's direction, but as it was, he just rolled his eyes hard enough to make himself wince.

Joe snorted, barely muffling a laugh. "Anyway, do you want help, or not?"

"I want help," he grumbled.

Joe took the bowl and spoon carefully out of his hands and started feeding Barclay, and he tried not to feel too weird about it, opening his mouth obediently whenever the spoon came toward him and letting Joe feed him soup a little at a time until his stomach suddenly realized it was ravenous.

He growled under his breath. "Alright, so thank you, but this isn't working. Can you - can you help me hold it up to just drink it?"

Joe nodded, making the adjustment immediately. They lifted the bowl together, and Barclay gulped down soup in bigger mouthfuls, finishing the bowl quickly. Joe reached down and squeezed his knee before he got up to get more, pouring it into the tin cup instead of the bowl, and wrapping the whole thing with a cloth just in case.

It took two mugfuls before Barclay felt genuinely full, and Joe moved around the little space to rinse and put things away much more quickly than he'd moved before, suddenly lighter on his feet.

The soup woke Barclay up long enough for him to eat more soup, but then he felt himself start fading again, his eyes drooping as he watched Joe clean up.

No. No, he'd apparently left Joe once before, let himself zone out on him until it was like he wasn't even present. He wasn't doing that again. He forced his eyes open and his chin up.

As Joe came closer, Barclay reached out toward him, wincing as the motion pulled at his injured shoulder.

Joe responded immediately, taking his hand and stepping closer.

"Come here," Barclay said, "Come here, I'm trying to stay with you, I need-"

He didn't know what he needed.

Joe didn't seem to mind.

He stepped forward, coming closer and closer until Barclay had to carefully, carefully shift his position to give Joe room to stand between his knees.

Barclay tipped his head back to keep eye contact, until Joe was too close even for that, and then he found himself leaning forward, burying his face into Joe's sweater as his boyfriend's hands hovered over the back of his head and shoulders and then touched down nervously on the top of his back, beneath all the places that hurt.

Barclay pulled him closer, taking advantage of the fact that he could reach the middle of Joe's back and not worry about injuries.

The sweater smelled like dust and mothballs, and the sweat smell under it was more b.o. than fresh exertion, which made sense after 3 days without a shower. But then Joe leaned a little further over into the embrace, and Barclay could _just_ reach a strip of skin around Joe's collarbone, over the top of the sweater, where he smelled beautifully, gloriously like himself.

Barclay nuzzled into the opening and breathed deeply, grounding himself in the scent of Joe's skin and the warmth of his embrace until he felt more like himself again.

He let his last deep breath out as a heavy sigh and pulled slowly back away.

Joe ran his hands gently over Barclay's nose and cheekbones and ears, tracing his fingers in a line under Barclay's eyes. When Barclay tilted his head back farther, whining lightly in the back of his throat, Joe picked up the message, grinning devilishly and then bending down to kiss him.

That was grounding, too, in a whole different way. Barclay closed his eyes as Joe pulled away again, trying to keep ahold of the spark in the middle of his chest that had blossomed with Joe so close. "Thank you," he breathed.

Joe leaned in and kissed him again, quickly this time. "Always," he whispered, smiling.

Barclay stayed awake as long as he could while Joe finished cleaning things up and getting ready to settle down for the evening, but finally let Joe help him lie down when it became clear that no amount of stubbornness was going to keep him awake for much longer.

Joe tried to step away and Barclay reached out for him again, too desperate to mind the twinge in his shoulder until after he'd managed to catch Joe's hand. "Wait. Don't let go."

Joe smiled, his face soft. "Give me a minute."

Barclay released his hand reluctantly, but Joe was back before he fell asleep, which was what mattered, and he'd brought his bedroll over with him, and they settled down to sleep close enough together that they could keep their hands linked, and that was what mattered. Barclay wasn't going to leave this time, just because he was tired. He _wasn't_.

*****

Joe's heart skipped a beat when the hand in his moved, and it was racing by the time he could get to his feet. "Barclay? Are you ok?"

The eyes that met his in the dim light of the lantern he'd kept half-open were bright and clear and _present_ , and his heart eased back to its regular pace.

"Yeah," Barclay answered, his voice raspy and soft. "Little thirsty."

He was back. He was _back_. Joe got him a drink and helped him sit up to drink it, then found himself supporting Barclay as the latter clung to his upper arms and gazed almost desperately into his face.

"I don't know what I was dreaming," he said, "But you weren't safe."

Joe slid forward out of his bent-over position and onto his knees and then grabbed Barclay's elbows to stabilize him. "I'm safe now."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"Ok." Barclay didn't sound skeptical, but he didn't sound right, either. He wasn't at full capacity. But he was better, _so_ much better, and Joe needed to make _sure_ of it.

He squeezed Barclay's elbows. "I _know_ , Barclay. We're underground where nobody can find us but Duck, and even if they do, I have tranqs and my sidearm. And this crazy dude's old guns, but those haven't been cleaned or oiled in who knows how long, and I'm not in the business of shooting things that haven't been well maintained."

Barclay's eyebrows contracted, either confused or concerned, and maybe both. "Ok," he said again, and this time, Joe believed it and relaxed his grip on Barclay's elbows.

Barclay's hands slid carefully down his arms to hold his hands, and he gripped back, letting himself have the solidness of the connection to prove Barclay was really here with him.

For a few moments, they just stared into each other's eyes in the partial darkness, neither willing to look away.

Finally, Barclay whispered, "Help me back onto the floor. I want - I need to hold you. I have to know."

He found himself nodding. "I have to know, too."

More awake, he would have debated the wisdom of putting someone still so injured onto the dirty ground, but he still hadn't broken eye contact with Barclay, and whatever was in those eyes was in his own heart, and he helped Barclay climb awkwardly down, wincing and flinching and gasping and _alive_.

They cuddled up together, Joe finding places to lean against Barclay much easier now that he was sure Barclay wanted him just as close as he wanted to be and could tell him what hurt and what didn't.

Barclay sighed like the breath of the whole world was rolling through his chest, but they were both holding each other the best they could, and Joe felt certain, for the first time in days, that Barclay would be there and present when he woke up, so it didn't matter that he wanted to kiss him again but couldn't afford to move that far and lose their hard-won arrangement.

Barclay fell asleep before he did, but the familiar snoring was much more soothing now that it was right under his ear, where it should be, even though that had also made it louder. It drowned out the worries, and he sunk into it, into the familiarity and the warm feeling that wrapped around his heart at the sound of it, and he fell asleep there.

*****

Barclay woke up with his whole body tensed, before he even registered the sounds overhead that had woken him.

Joe shifted beside him, jostling Barclay's shoulder just slightly as he moved. Barclay winced, biting back a yelp neither of them could afford.

He had to force back another instinctive noise as he moved the finger of the other hand across his lips, the motion pulling at the shoulder Joe hadn't bumped.

Joe's eyes widened and he started to get up, glance flicking up to the gun safe a few feet away. Barclay tried to catch him, but Joe slipped out of his fingers, moving too fast for Barclay to keep up with while everything still hurt like this when he moved.

There was a rattling at the trap door and Joe had his gun and that _wasn't enough_ , and Barclay couldn't _let_ it be enough, and he rose shakily and painfully to his feet, his breaths coming ragged and desperate.

"What are you doing?" Joe hissed, "I've got you!"

Barclay didn't have anything left to answer with. Everything he had was standing, and if whatever came through that door wanted to hurt them, his whole world would be protecting Joe, and right now that was enough. He kept breathing and didn't answer.

The trap door creaked, and Joe was _still_ faster than he was, darting in front of him and raising his sidearm toward the widening strip of light where the door was being pulled open.

"Identify yourself!" Joe shouted.

A familiar face poked through the gap, eyebrows drawn together. "Jesus, Joe, who else would it be?" Duck asked.

Oh.

_Oh._

"Thank God!" Joe answered, lowering the gun. "Please tell me you brought help."

"The best!" Duck answered.

The trapdoor flew the rest of the way open with a gust of wind and a loud thump. Aubrey Little's voice sounded from the top. "Duck, are you gonna stay there, or are you gonna get out of the way?"

Joe holstered his gun and turned toward Barclay, just in time to dart over and catch him as his legs gave out, the relief of hearing Duck and Aubrey taking out just enough of his fear that he couldn't keep to his feet anymore.

Joe was still helping him sit up comfortably when Aubrey and Duck made it to the bottom of the ladder and he realized Dany was there, too, climbing down behind the other two.

"It's been a little while since I did this," Aubrey warned, her eyes sparkling with humor even as her voice did a passable imitation of seriousness, "So hold still."

He found himself smiling up at her. "Wouldn't dream of moving."

"Yeah, that's what it looked like," Joe said, prompting a bark of laughter from Duck.

"Minerva's gonna stay up at the top in case you need extra help on the ladder," Dany said, stepping up closely behind her girlfriend and laying a hand on Aubrey's shoulder, "And Jake's watching the ATV because he was worried about seeing you like that and getting upset."

Aubrey didn't seem to hear, her face screwed up in concentration. Then she smiled again, a bright, wide, toothy thing Barclay always missed when she and Dany were gone to Sylvain. Sparks of red energy as bright as her hair danced around her fingertips, but when she shoved them into his chest, they didn't shock him. They didn't even sting. They just flooded brightly through his body, turning all the places that hurt into little patches of bright red glow.

The magic felt weird as it pulled him back together, all of the strange, sickening drag of being sewn back together, with none of the pricking and none of the pain, everything half-numb and half-feeling and strange.

Aubrey leaned back once the light faded, taking a deep breath. "How's that feel?"

He concentrated on each spot one after another. "Better? Itchy. I think the wounds are still there."

She nodded. "Itchy's good. Janelle says it is, anyway. It's a stage of healing. Bleeding, not bleeding, swollen, itchy as hell, mostly better, better."

Dany laughed over her shoulder. "Those are - not the technical terms she uses."

"Nah," Aubrey answered, "But they're more evocative."

"So he's - alright?" Joe interrupted.

"Oh! Yeah! Probably? Probably. We should get him back to the Lodge so I can double check back there and also 'cause Mama's still probably a little worried."

Barclay tried hesitantly to sit up and made it with only mild discomfort. He blinked in surprise.

Joe was behind him, a hand on his shoulder to support him, but the shoulder didn't hurt and he felt - he _felt_ half normal, anywhere he didn't feel half numb. Joe looked down at him, eyebrows drawn together, and he nodded, answering a question he hadn't been asked yet.

Joe helped him to his feet, and this time when he stood, it just felt like _standing_.

"You're a miracle worker, Aubs." Duck said, "You should've seen him the last couple days. I kept having to astral project over just to make sure it wasn't too much of an emergency to wait any longer."

"Yeah, we know," she answered, "But I told you I could fix him."

Duck chuckled. "Yeah, you did."

Dany was suddenly at his side, rolling her eyes fondly. She laid a hand on his elbow. "Come on, Barclay. I've got your bracelet. Let's get you home."

The magic that wrapped around him the moment the bracelet tightened around his wrist was familiar, but still disorienting as his perspective of the world shifted downward by so many inches.

He wobbled, suddenly unsteady, but now he and Joe were only 3 inches apart in height, and it was easy to support each other in ways it hadn't been before.

He took advantage of his newfound freedom of movement to pull Joe into a hug once he was steady again, and Joe squeezed him back just as tightly before they both let Aubrey and Dany pull them along toward the ladder.

It was strange being treated as fragile, now that he felt clear-headed enough to process it. Minerva practically lifted him off the top of the ladder as she 'helped' him through the trapdoor, and then Joe and Dany stayed closely at his sides as they walked back to the ATV. Jake both exclaimed that he looked great and insisted that he sit in the trailer they'd attached to the ATV in what he assumed was a classic Aubrey Little show of impractical exuberance.

It wasn't bad cuddling up with Joe in the back, though.

It also wasn't bad arriving to a home cooked meal and all his friends jostling to get eyes on him.

It _especially_ wasn't bad once Joe mentioned awkwardly that he'd gotten a bit scraped up, too, and half the focus switched to him and they could share the weight of the attention.

He felt guilty as soon as the memory of Joe's scratched chest and shoulders came back to him, but as Aubrey leapt to cover the wounds in more pulsing red energy, sealing them up under Joe's bandages like she had with his own wounds, it was easier to let go of the feeling.

Joe vanished to take a shower while Aubrey was getting Barclay out of his bandages and giving him another once-over, but by the time Barclay came down to the lobby after his own shower and Aubrey's declaration of a fullish recovery, Joe was there again, which was a relief. Duck and Minerva were snuggled up on a couch next to Aubrey and Dany, and Jake was making Mama laugh, and Moira was flying up to him with the ghostly speed she only used when there was no one else here to get suspicious, and Joe was looking across the room at him with a sparkle in his eyes, and things were alright.

He let himself be led to the comfiest of the lobby chairs, half dragging Joe into it with him so he wouldn't feel so singled out, and he let himself be handed a fresh cup of sweet tea made the way he preferred instead of the way Mama liked it, for once, and when exhaustion rose up around him in spite of his new found health, he let it take him away, safe and warm and surrounded by his friends.


End file.
